Buyback

Herbalife Ltd. shares reached a 52-week high Tuesday morning on speculation that the company may begin an aggressive share repurchase. The Los Angeles nutritional products company has been one of the biggest names on Wall Street since December, when hedge fund manager Bill Ackman accused the company of operating a pyramid scheme and said he had bet more than $1 billion that its shares would fall. So far, the company has fended off those allegations, with several high-profile investors -- Carl Icahn, George Soros, William Stiritz and others -- taking massive long positions on the stock.

Big earnings. Big stock buyback. Big stock bump. On Thursday, investors cheered Apple's performance by sending its stock up by as much as 8.5% in early trading. The stock climbed to $ 569.50 at one point early Thursday, up from $524.75 the previous day. Riding a wave of strong iPhone sales, Apple on Wednesday reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $45.6 billion, well above analysts' consensus of $43.6 billion, and up from the...

Gun registration is a runaway train that will carry the bad guys to freedom and expose the law-abiding to great danger. I have just returned from my native country, Australia, and am horrified to learn that within the 12 months since law-abiding citizens surrendered 640,381 guns in a buyback campaign, this is what happened: homicides up 3.2%; assaults up 8.6%; robberies up 44%. Funny thing happened in the government's rush to disarm Australia: The...

The value of stock buybacks by U.S. companies jumped in the fourth quarter of last year, led by repurchases by Apple Inc. and other technology giants. Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 repurchased $126 billion of stock in the fourth quarter and $477.6 billion in all of 2013, according to FactSet Research Systems. The fourth-quarter level was about the same as the third-quarter amount but was up 28.5% from the last three months of 2012. In part because of pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, Apple bought back nearly $27 billion of stock in 2013.

A gun buyback event held over the weekend in East Los Angeles yielded 152 weapons, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said this week. The cache of weapons exchanged for gift cards to Target or Ralphs included several assault rifles as well as handguns, shotguns and standard riles, the department said. The event was held Saturday at Belvedere Park, one of several such sessions that encourage residents to turn in guns, no questions asked, in exchange for gift cards or in some cases cash.

Los Angeles officials on Tuesday revealed details of the city's upcoming gun buyback day, the first held after similar events in December yielded record numbers for some area municipalities. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Police Chief Charlie Beck announced that residents can anonymously turn in firearms May 4 and receive up to $100 of Ralph's gift cards for handguns, shotguns and rifles, and up to $200 for assault weapons. Authorities will collect weapons at four locations from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day: The Los Angeles Fire Department Academy, 1700 Stadium Way; a South L.A. park-and-ride parking lot, 1300 West Pacific Coast Highway; the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, 7900 South Western Avenue; and the Van Nuys Masonic Temple, 14750 Sherman Way. Though the event is usually held in the spring, the December shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school prompted officials across Southern California to host buyback days at the end of the year.

Hundreds of guns were set to be melted down following an Oakland gun buyback held hours after two more people died in a shooting in the violence-plagued city. The Saturday event, organized by state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), had enough funding to take in 300 guns for $250 apiece but ran out as people arrived to turn in trunkloads of weapons. Oakland police issued vouchers for guns given up after the fund was depleted. Earlier, two men were fatally shot outside a house in East Oakland, the southeastern part of the city, bringing the city's homicide total this year to 16. Police say they have no motives or suspects in the killings of Juan Barnes, 34, of Hayward and Alphonso Lawson, 38, of Oakland.

Among the many casualties of the Enron debacle and its fallout, count corporate America's appetite for its own paper. In January, a mere 18 companies announced plans to repurchase stock, and the total buyback commitment was $1.8 billion, according to Thomson Financial Securities Data. Those figures compare with an average of 64 buyback announcements each month over the last two years and an average total dollar value of $13.6 billion a month. So far in February, 11 companies have committed a total of $7.1 billion to repurchase shares.

DirecTV Group Inc., the largest U.S. satellite-television provider, said its board approved the repurchase of as much as $1 billion of common stock. The buyback would represent as many as 50.8 million shares, or about 4.4% of DirecTV's outstanding stock, based on the company's $19.67 closing price Friday. The El Segundo company said it had repurchased about $5 billion of stock since February 2006. DirecTV had about 1.16 billion shares outstanding as of Nov. 2. Liberty Media Corp.

The Walt Disney Co. will repurchase up to $8 billion in stock next year, giving a major boost to investor returns, the company's chief financial officer Jay Rasulo said Thursday. In remarks at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2013 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills, Rasulo cited confidence in the return on Disney's investments, the overall company, and its stock price, which has increased 25% to $65.49 a share...

WASHINGTON - Federal regulators rejected plans by Citigroup Inc. and four other large U.S. banks for dividend payments and stock buybacks after the latest round of stress tests. The results raised concerns about weaknesses in the risk-planning processes of Citi and three of the banks, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. It was the second time in three years that Citi failed a federal stress test. Citi's chief executive, Michael Corbat, said he was "deeply disappointed" by the Fed's findings, asserting that the nation's third-largest bank by assets was "one of the best-capitalized financial institutions in the world.

WASHINGTON -- The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it rejected plans by Citigroup Inc. and four other large U.S. banks for dividend payments and stock buybacks after annual stress tests. Those tests raised questions about weaknesses in the risk-planning processes of Citi and three other banks. And the Fed rejected the capital distribution plan of one firm, Zions Bancorporation of Salt Lake City, because of concerns about its financial health during a extreme financial downturn. Overall, 25 of the 30 biggest banks received regulatory approval to pay back money to shareholders after the tests indicated the firms could withstand a severe economic shock even after shedding that capital.

With Apple's stock falling more than 8% at one point on Tuesday, activist investor Carly Icahn swooped in and bought another $500 million worth of shares. "Just bought $500 mln more $AAPL shares," Icahn tweeted. "My buying seems to be going neck-and-neck with Apple's buyback program, but hope they win that race. " By mid-day trading, Apple's stock had recovered a bit to $ 509.63, a drop of $ 40.87, or 7.42%. Still, the tumble largely mirrors the reaction in after-hours trading Monday after an earnings report from Apple that showed the company sold fewer iPhones than expected during the holiday quarter. PHOTOS: 10 ways to use the sharing economy In addition, the company said its revenue for the current quarter ending in March would be between $42 million and $44 million.

Investor activist Carl Icahn has submitted an advisory proposal asking Apple to increase the size of its stock buyback program in 2014 to $50 billion. The details of the proposal were included in a proxy statement that Apple filed Friday afternoon with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The proxy revealed that Apple's annual shareholder meeting will be held Feb. 28, and it contains details of 11 proposals that investors will be asked to vote on. Most of the proposals are mundane, such as reappointing board members or an auditing firm. However, Icahn's proposal (No. 10)

Stock buybacks by U.S. corporations hit their highest level since the 2008 global financial crisis, as companies gobbled up their own shares despite paying steadily rising prices. Total share repurchases by companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock index reached $128.2 billion in the third quarter, according to researcher S&P Dow Jones Indices . That's the most since $141.7 billion in the final quarter of 2007. Buybacks were up 8.6% from the second quarter, and 23.6% in the last year.

Angelenos exchanged more than 800 firearms -- including a World War II-era assault rifle and a .22-caliber pen gun -- for grocery store gift cards at a weekend buyback event, city officials announced Monday. The 817 weapons collected across the city Saturday included 387 handguns, 268 rifles, 131 shotguns and 31 assault weapons, Los Angeles police reported. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck hailed the results at a news conference Monday. "This program is about something simple: Taking guns off the streets of Los Angeles," Garcetti said.

Shareholder activist Carl Icahn broke bread with Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook on Monday to make his case that the company's record stock buyback program was still not enough. Icahn revealed in August that he had purchased about $1 billion worth of Apple's shares. Earlier this year, Apple announced that it had increased its dividend and stock buyback program to more than $100 billion, including $60 billion to buy back shares of the company's stock. Icahn said in his tweet Tuesday that he wants to see the buyback portion increased even further: Had a cordial dinner with Tim last night.

Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. bank, said Wednesday that it will buy back up to 130 million shares of stock, or 7.5% of its outstanding shares, during the next two years. The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank's shares fell $1.19 to close at $70.56 on the New York Stock Exchange. At that price, the buyback could total about $9 billion.

Shareholder activist Carl Icahn said Wednesday he had informed Apple that he has submitted a proposal to let shareholders vote on a larger stock buyback. In a tweet Wednesday, Icahn wrote: "Gave $AAPL notice we'll be making a precatory proposal to call for vote to increase buyback program, although not at $150 billion level. " A "precatory" proposal is one that is considered an advisory measure, but not necessarily legally binding. Apple's annual shareholder meeting typically takes place in February. Icahn revealed his large stake in Apple this summer and said he would begin pressing the company to increase the size of the stock buyback.

Carl Icahn, the billionaire activist investor who has made a career of pushing companies to make changes to boost shares, published a letter to Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook urging the company's board to increase the size of a stock repurchase. Icahn promised not to tender his shares if Apple agrees to his proposal to implement a $150-billion repurchase, he said in the open letter that he posted on his website Thursday. Icahn said he has increased his holdings in the company to 4.7 million shares worth $2.5 billion, from 3.4 million shares in August.